In the same vein, Facebook has been broadened to include not just folks in college. I had a mini heart attack when my dad sent me a Facebook friend request.

A couple of years back, before your mama and aunty ‘gbeboruns’ got on Facebook, it was where you identified your relationship. It wasn’t official until your relationship status read ‘in a relationship’. And your relationship crossed to a whole new level whenever he accepted your relationship request.

Adam is in a relationship with Eve.

That’s when you’ve truly arrived. Your friends might even call you to congratulate you. All your female friends know it’s ‘official’…. until you guys break up. Then he has to take it down. Facebook, in all it’s ‘ameboness’ will then proceed to post on the TL with the same zeal –

Adam is no longer in a relationship with Eve.

And if you have Nigerian friends, in their shamelessness, will comment with the ‘Eeyahs’ under said post. That was back in the day.

Nowadays, even more so than before, social media is becoming an integral part of our lives with BBM, Facebook, twitter, Google +. People are now seeing the realness of meeting folks on social media. ‘Setting P’ is no longer a foreign concept.

In the same vein, Facebook has been broadened to include not just folks in college. I had a mini heart attack when my dad sent me a Facebook friend request. After all, these days, the moment I log on, I’m constantly being bombarded with wedding pictures, maternity shots, and baby pictures. There’s also the possibility that such news would have made its way to places you didn’t foresee (as opposed to college when everybody knew that being in a relationship doesn’t always equal marriage).

You’re in love, he’s all you want to talk about, you can’t wait to announce to the whole world that you’ve found your boo.­­ Which begs the question: At what point is it okay to step out with your relationship on social media? At what point do you announce to the e-world that you’re no longer available to be flirted with? Afterall, you don’t want to be a stupid infant and LOL another woman’s boyfriend’s tweet, and risk being called a #stupidInfant.

Then there’s the twitter relationship. Say you find love on twitter, at what point is it okay to move from meaningful tweets, to sub-tweets at your twitter love, to full on TDA (Twitter display of affection)?

Regardless of how the Chad Ochocinco and Evelyn Lozada relationship turned out in the end, I always admired their “social media love”. Of course this was a love story born on the very public twitter Timeline (and may I speculate some private DMs). In the Nigerian lingo, Ochocinco set that P, and hit a home run! I silently watched how Ochocinco played out his love life on twitter. At least everybody knew he had a woman on his Timeline, so the flirting was kept to a bearable minimum, and progressing to marriage. They are proof that declaring your love interest on twitter does not immediately spell doom for your relationship.

Keep in mind that whatever you do, the audience will always be watching. You don’t want to tweetcast a short-lived ‘twaffair’ [Tweet affair]. My general rule of thumb is: Whatever you wouldn’t do in person, do not do online. It’s not as if you go about snogging up in public whenever you’re around your ‘boo’. In the same vein, it’s insensitive to carry on like that on social media. Some folks even go the extra mile and completely unfollow their significant others on social media.

Of course there is this lingering question of “what if we break up?” what’s the etiquette for that? Do we stop tweeting at each other, or limit it to sub-tweets, or unfollow one another all together? There are no hard and fast rules for these things, just bear in mind that anything written over the internet is written in ink.

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Bumight is a doctor based in the US with a special interest in obstetrics and hynecology. She’s equal parts shy and outspoken depending on the situation. In spite of these, she’s very protective of her anonymity; treating it as the last vestige of personal life available to herself and small circle of family and loved ones. She blogs at www.this-is-why-I-write.blogspot.com

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.